TEACHER’S EFFECTIVENESS AND STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN ECONOMICS
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background to the study
As a subject of interest, economics focuses on social science that studies human behavior as the relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. The comprehension of economics as a social science subject would be impossible without the following factors; professional teachers, equipped library, visuals, audio, audio-visual materials, printed/non-printed materials, methodology, charts, maps graphs, resource persons as well as the environment.
As a matter of interest, a teacher is a positive component of academic environment that disseminate and impact knowledge into students, controlling, planning, organizing and ensuring a peaceful learning outcome, however, there are two groups of teachers, the good and the bad or effective and ineffective teachers.
The effective (good) teachers are conceived to be fully equipped and are professionally minded to lead their students in every competitive task, as well as inculcate in them values that would make them exhibit behaviors that are generally acceptable and desirable. The ineffective teachers on the other hand do not care about the success of their students in examination and in some cases, students who passed through such teachers especially in terms of emulating their lifestyle tends to exhibit behaviors that are detestable by the society. Also in competitive examination, such students do not do well,
Additionally, for teachers to be to deliver and foster education as one of the nation’s tools, they should place priority on students’ learning, know the content coverage, be able to deliver instructions using the available relevant teaching strategies as well as evaluate students’ academic performance. In the light of the above, this study seeks to find out whether teachers effectiveness relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
It is not very easy to investigate the area of effectiveness in teaching because many hold the view that the concept has no measureable indices. In order to approach this issue, this study seeks to embark on the following measures; to determine how planning relates to students’ academic performance in economics, to determine how content coverage, delivering instruction, and teaching strategies relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
Finally, the teacher’s understanding, his roles, academic environment, students’ concepts, government participation in teacher’s welfare, usage of instructional materials, and availability of good or adequate learning facilities would make the study intractable.
- Theoretical framework
This study is based on: Social Learning Theory by Bandura.
The social learning theory was propounded by Albert Bandura (1986). It focuses on the fact that learning occurs through studying other people, thing, and events in the environment. The information gained from observing other people affects the way we act (Elliot Kratochwill, Cook and Travers, 2000).
Another assumption of this theory is that, for learning to take place, learners must interact with the environment (the teacher, instructional material and the learning environment).
Interestingly, Bandura and other social cognitive psychologist believed that learning by reinforcement, the S-R theories does not explain the socialization process among human beings. They argue that unlike animals, humans have a culture which they transmit from one generation to another.
Thus, people learn multitude of solution to solve problems that were discovered by others before them. For instance, people learn their mother tongue on the rules of grammar not by inventing them rather by listening, observing and imitating others. Students observe and imitate teachers, peers, pictures, computers, drawing as well as models.
Modeling behavior may be described as a person’s observation of another person’s behavior as well acquire or master the behavior in a representation form (Bandura 1986). Ogar (2007) reviewed Bandura’s work, Ross and Ross (1963) investigated the effect of life models, filmed human aggression and filmed cartoon aggression on pre-school children aggressive behavior.
Ogar (2007) noted that the filmed human aggression portrayed models displaying aggression similar to that in the film. He also reveals further that children displayed significantly more aggression in the control group.
Thus, the implication of this theory to the study is that positive attitude towards learning difficult economics terms and concepts may be overcome as the observer (students) reacts favorably to the model habits, repeat and internalize such modeled behavior if they are properly reinforced. Kilauwsmierer (1985) reported a study were this theory was applied to four groups of students who received high praise and completed high effort assignment formed more positive altitude with the subject matter of the assignment.
Teachers through the professional competence can be positive models for imitation. The presence and use of instructional materials in the learning process would also help students interact and imitate the learning process, teachers in their course of teaching will be motivated and reinforce students and as well use evaluative approach to evaluate students.
- Statement of the problem
It is obvious that in recent years, education is not achieving its cherished objectives of maximum production of educated citizens. Considering that the federal Government of Nigeria had adopted education as an instrument per excellence for effective national development, that is to say education had been adopted adequately as the only instrument that can solve the socio-economic problem of Nigeria; in that case, the adequate supply of effective teachers becomes one of the core educational problems. As reflected on the national policy of education that ‘teachers education will continue to be given a major emphasis in all educational planning efforts (Federal Republic of Nigeria 1989) because no education system can rise above the quality of its teachers.
Furthermore, the national implementation committee for the national policy on education comments on the issue of professional roles of the teachers is to be a matter of continuing national concern with additionally more participation helping teachers to relate the school experience through the above and others which have been determined by policy makers, but schools under the policy as well as schools in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State performs extremely below the expected standard in economics. Performance is infurious to parents, governments, society, schools, labour force and their entire educational system.
Additionally, Obubra Local Government Area is largely populated such that this issue is not limited to one school, thus, it is difficult to predict how it relates to students learning performance in economics.
Considering that Obubra Local Government Area is a rural area, one can deduce that the problem is as a result of the fact that schools in such areas are not well equipped compared to schools in urban settlements with basic amenities, competent and experienced teachers as well as the good nature of the learning environment, while some students refuse to comply adequately with the available resources as well as develop hatred for the subject and the subject teacher, teachers on their own sector do not plan, organized, not well equipped, do not try to cover content, fail to use the appropriate available strategies as well as not being professionally experienced.
Since these problems are associated with learning, it becomes therefore pertinent to look into how teacher’s effectiveness relates to students’ academic performance in economics in Obubra Local Government Area.
- Purpose of the study
The overall purpose of this research is to ascertain the extent to which teacher’s effectiveness relates to students’ academic performance in economics in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State.
This study is specially designed to:
- Examine how planning of lesson relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- Determine the extent to which content coverage relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- Examine how delivering instruction relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- Determine how teaching strategies relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- Research questions
For effective and accurate research work, the researcher decided to formulate the following research questions to guide the study.
- To what extent does planning of lesson relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- To what degree does content coverage relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- How delivering instruction does relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- To what extent does teaching strategies relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- Research hypotheses
In an attempt to find a solution to the research questions stated above, the researcher hypothetically stated these:
- There is no significant relation between planning of lesson and academic performance of students in economics.
- There is no significant relation between content coverage and academic performance of students in economics.
- There is no significant relation between delivering instruction and academic performance of students in economics.
- There is no significant relation between teaching strategies and academic performance of students in economics.
- Assumptions of the study
The study is based on the following assumptions
- The sample of the study was a true representative of the entire population.
- The instruments used for data collection were valid and reliable
- The languages expressed in the questionnaires were simple without difficulty to the respondent.
- Normal (distribution of variable)
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Effectiveness of a measureable concept.
- Significance of the study
The outcome of this study would be of immense significance to students, teachers, parents, social gathering, resource persons, counselors, government and policy makers.
Students – Undergraduates and post graduates students will find this material rewarding and a mirror to their studies.
Teachers – The end product of this work will add to teachers positively as it will help them to check-mate themselves to measure the appropriate effective performance needed in teaching learning process.
Parents – This work will serve as a guide with which parents will benefit from in terms of instructing their children.
Social gathering – The theory of social learning as used in this work will add positively to social events such as social gatherings, it will serve as a huge guide to such event when it comes to delivering instructions socially.
Resource Persons – This work will help to add more value to resource persons who sort to improve themselves in areas covered by this study, areas such as teaching strategies and delivering instructions.
Counselors – They will find this material a veritable tool as they serve as guidance to students most times when it comes to teacher learner relationship, this material will ease their work as it will expose them to a wide range of the relationship that exist between the teachers and the learners when it comes to the teaching learning process.
Government – In countries where education is a paramount issue such as Nigeria, the outcome of this work will add so much positively to improve the educational sector; a clear knowledge of this work will help the government in choosing teachers based on their effectiveness.
Policy makers – This material will serve as a guide for effective policy making and proper curriculum implementation as well as instructing the government on the right steps to make sure that educational growth and development is achieved.
- Limitation of the study
A number of factors stood as a hindrance to the study, such factors as non-availability of materials, some available materials were too old to be used, and lack of good internet access due to the bad nature of the network, sincerity of purpose of the respondents was also a major limitation.
Also on the side of the researcher, the inability to simultaneously combine his academic work with the task of gathering adequate information appreciably related to this study was a major setback.
Financial constraint, finite nature of time, the nature of the subject matter which makes it difficult for teachers to willingly respond to the questionnaire as they viewed the study only as someone’s upliftment struggle were other militating agents that impeded smooth and swift collection of data for this research.
However, the researcher was able to surmount the limitation through determination, hard work, and assistance from friends, family and principals of the various schools used.
- Scope of the study
For effective management and thorough investigation, the study was limited to selected secondary schools in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State, basically the senior secondary students with focus on SS2 students.
Also among all the factors that may be affecting students’ academic performance in economics, the researcher is only interested in teacher’s effectiveness in areas such as planning, content coverage, delivering instructions, and teaching strategies as it relates to students’ academic performance in economics.
- Definition of terms
- Economics: Economics is defined as a social science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.
- Academic Performance: This is the ability of an individual to put into practice what he has learned, have the ability to remember some facts and points and also have the techniques of answering or using them to solve problems at any given time. Hence it reveals the person’s intelligence and promotes learning.
- Teaching Strategies: These are indispensable methods, skills used by professional teachers to enhance effective teaching and learning situation. It makes learning interactive.
- Planning: This is the process of thinking ahead about and organizing the activities required to achieve a desired goal. It has to do with the creation and also the maintenance of a plan.
- Delivering Instruction: Otherwise known as instructional delivery is a process in which teachers apply pieces of instructional strategies to communicate and interact with students around academic content, and to support students’ engagement.
